Five(69)

It’s not the gore of the stiff, detached limb, the weight of it, that has left her numb and unblinking in front of the TV, as much as the absurdity of the fact that the wrist of the arm was still wearing a watch. And that the watch was still working and telling the right time. The dead man’s arm, the watch that read twenty past nine. That’s the picture she won’t be able to get out of her head.

While Officer Tempest is dealing with the arm that will haunt her for years to come, her colleague, Officer Chubb, who somehow got out of body recovery on the tracks and is taking statements in the ticket office, is speaking with Medical Student.

“So, I understand you’re the hero here. I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Chubb says to Medical Student.

“Sorry?” Medical Student says, confused.

“That young guy, everyone says you pulled him out of the way. Well done, amazing work,” the officer says, as Sonny is rolled by on a gurney.

Medical Student says, “Excuse me, please, I must speak to him,” and runs to his side.

Sonny’s right arm is extended at a bizarre angle from his body. His shoulder was dislocated by the force of Medical Student pulling him away from the oncoming train and into the crawl space under the platform and being forced to lie awkwardly on it for an hour until they were both pulled out from between the platform and the train.

“Peace be with you, brother. I will pray for you. You pray too. It will help. I am glad you are still with us,” are the words that come to Medical Student.

Sonny, unable to find any words, says only, “It hurts,” and Medical Student knows the kind of hurt he means.

“You are stronger than the pain, remember that,” Medical Student says, as they wheel Sonny away. And Sonny knows the kind of pain he means.

Later, Sonny will be asked many questions by well-meaning professionals about his behavior on the tracks. It will not be clear to them whether he intentionally did not move from the path of the oncoming train or whether he was simply paralyzed with fear. They will read the witness statements collated by the police. They say that Sonny helped the old woman, that he rescued Liam the first time he fell and was bleeding. They say that he seemed concerned with making everyone safe, but also that he seemed to want to die. Some will say that he knelt in front of the train on purpose. Some will say he seemed to freeze, which was also plausible.

Sonny will not be sure how to answer, and so for several days he won’t. He will take painkillers and barely touch the hospital food and lie awake most of the night and sleep most of the day. He will ask Gabriela and Valentina to leave when they arrive to see him, even though their tears will pain him. He will think about the events and people that intervened to keep him alive when he thought he wanted to die. He will wonder about helping the old woman, but he won’t be sure if he did it because he wanted to or if he did it because it would have looked weird if he hadn’t and would have made him look suspicious or if he did it because his mother never would have forgiven him if he hadn’t helped an elderly woman on the ground and he knew his mother was always around somewhere, watching.

He will think about running to get that big bald bloke off the tracks, and he won’t be sure if he did it because it was the perfect cover for getting onto the tracks or if he did it because he didn’t want that guy to die, or if he even cared about that guy dying. The best outcome would have been for him to save the big bald bloke and then for him to die accidentally in the act of saving, and so die a hero. But then he would have died in a lie. And he was always living in one and that was the problem. Death surely is preferable to this, lying in pain, rescuing someone who died anyway, who died the way he intended to die himself.

He will think about the people on the platform, strangers, who stopped him. Who insisted that he live. That weird old mum screaming at him and that weird young mum with that weird kid screaming at him, even the old lady falling down in front of him. And of course the doctor guy who was like Black Panther, saving everyone everywhere all at once. They knew nothing about his life, what a mess he had made of it, but they all wanted him to live. They risked their lives so he would live. He will marvel at how extraordinary ordinary people are. So loyal to life that they demand living from everyone. Even him.

He will not know how to express all of this to the well-meaning professionals. He will not know how to explain his contradictions and juxtapositions and the crossroads of his thoughts and actions. He will not know how to describe the relief he felt when he learned it was Liam who had died and it was him who had survived.

You start at the beginning.

Sonny will stare straight ahead at the mint-green wall of his hospital room and push away the voice he hears.

You start at the start. They will help you, but only if they know.

He will close his eyes. Having never been able to hear her in all these years, he will at first deny it, he will blame the voice on painkillers and exhaustion.

Are you listening to me?

He will be afraid to say her name out loud. But, as she would have in life, she will persist. And finally he will say, “Mama?”

I’m here.

And Sonny will tell his mother everything, but unlike what she would have done in life, she will listen. She will not try to fix it. She will say only, I trust you, which he never heard her say before.

For a long time, Sonny will struggle through his problems, he will lean on Gabriela and Valentina, he will fail sometimes, many times, but he will also succeed. Every day something small will change, until all the small changes will become his new life: imperfect, challenging, sometimes very hard and very painful, but also extremely beautiful. And one day he and Valentina will have a son, whom he will sit on his shoulders, and for a second he will remember the day he almost died, and then his boy will say, reaching upward, “Touch the sky!” and they both will feel a feeling like flying. And Sonny will be grateful for this joy, and hold on to it, and keep it close, and wrap himself in it for the times that he will still feel pain, though his pain will no longer be coupled with hopelessness because he will know that he can survive it. And he will.